Cuban

I captured an unusual image tonight while doing night photography and it was eventually suggested to me it was an aircraft dumping fuel.

After looking at data, I found LM158 went off radar at 6,700ft at the exact time of the image near us at 21:47

We are too far away from INV for landing lights to be on

Flight thankfully shows landed a short time after at 21:54, so just curious to solve the strange image.

Thank you in advance.

Cuban

Interesting information, thank you.

Any reasoning you can think of for going off radar at that altitude and ironically at the same time when this image was taken?

Bigears

The flight did not 'go off radar' - that particular aircraft does not transmit position data which is one method that flight tracking apps use for plotting, but instead relies upon; a) number of stations receiving a signal; b) knowing the exact position of those stations, and c) those stations having a very accurate time reference, so that it can calculate fairly accurately where the flight is. This doesn't work so well at the lower levels as there aren't enough stations receiving a signal. https://www.flightradar24.com/how-it-works
Although very impressive, the apps are not the same as radar.

As regards the white bit behind the aircraft, I don't know, but almost certainly a coincidence. Good photo for the conspiracy theorists

treadigraph

Probably just dropped below the height where the feed could pick it up.

The cloud could be a condensation cloud as it was descending and turning?